The present invention relates to a communication system and method for mobile and/or stationary devices.
Publication DE 43 22 293, among others, makes known a method for the electronic management of agricultural working machines, with which a central arithmetic unit coordinates working processes between working machines. The particular goal of the disclosed method is to provide the farmer with a tool with which he can efficiently coordinate his fleet of working machines and apply auxiliary substances in a specific manner depending on the yields determined. This reduces the costs for the auxiliary substances to be applied, since only that amount of fertilizer need now be applied to the ground, for example, that was previously removed from the ground by the amount of harvested crops recorded. To ensure that this application of fertilizer can be carried out in a geographically highly precise manner, the yield data are recorded using satellite navigation and stored in a data base, which is then called up to apply the fertilizer. Depending on the configuration, it is possible to store this geo-referenced data in an arithmetic unit of the particular working machine before use or to transfer it on-line to the arithmetic unit of the agricultural working machine during use.
In an embodiment of the method, the agricultural working machine, which is configured as a combine harvester, can also transmit information directly to sowing and fertilizing machines without relying on a master computer, the sowing and fertilizing machines simultaneously working the area already harvested by the combine harvester. Due to the one-sided orientation of management systems of this nature to the application of auxiliary substances on an as needed basis as a function of the determined yield of harvested crops, these systems are not suited to realizing data transfer between any type of agricultural working machines and/or stationary devices in the sense of optimizing a process chain, or for efficiently incorporating agricultural working machines into existing process chains.